


Glitter For the Getaway Mile

by Go0se



Series: Solid Mirages [6]
Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), Hesitant Alien - Gerard Way (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkwardness, First Meetings, Gen, Hesitant Alien Era, Shapeshifting, Spaceships, and meet aliens. as happens sometimes, careful what you wish for and all, crack treated kind of seriously, fight me about it, friendship!, in that the ending of 'Na Na Na' never happens and they go on being weird families together, pink fuzzy hugs, posted without a beta because I am not spending any more time on this holy Lord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-23 04:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrol was boring, Honey had learned. Swerving off the road as an shatterblast from <i> fucking nowhere </i> shook the very dust in front of her was less boring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glitter For the Getaway Mile

**Author's Note:**

> Even though this series isn't chronological or even necessarily in the same 'verse, this one in particular does follow 'Lord of the Desert'. Because I can, really. Honey is Grace/Motorbaby's proper killjoy name and in the events following she is about fifteen.  
> Please know that this has brief mentions of a loved ones' death. Take care of yourselves.
> 
> In keeping with the theme, the title is from a mash of 'Bulletproof Heart' and 'Juarez' lyrics. If you haven't listened to 'Hesitant Alien' yet I recommend finding it immediately.  
>  
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> 
> \----////----

 

 

Patrol was mostly boring, she'd learned.  
Not the rides, the rides were shiny. All fast air hum matching her bike's singing, clear skies stretching all around Honey big enough to hold all the thoughts in her head. Freedom without words to talk about it, just feelings.   
It was the _patrols_ that sucked. She was out here looking for Dracs to blast, or Runners coming onto their turf, or probes to shatter. But there was only ever sky and cracked ground. The thrill of being (finally) nodded at to go out on a perimeter sweep by herself had worn off about ten trips ago. The others hadn't brought anything shiny back from their sweeps in a long time, either.  
Obviously she didn't tell any bodies this. No Dracs were good Dracs, and transmissions from Doctor D guaranteed that it wasn't quiet all over so an ambush was pretty much out. But still. Quiet got _boring.  
_ Honey wished some Road Rats would blow through, or a small car of nobodyfaces, or that a fair would pop up close enough for them to see the lights and the cars passing by. _Something,_ anyway.

  
She wished it hard enough to almost be thrilled when a crash shook the ground just past the mile mark away from the diner. Almost.

Then her actual sense hit. She swore so loud swerving onto the shoulder of the road that some sandgulls who hadn't been startled away already took off, squawking indignantly. She screeched to a halt, swinging her feet from the 'cycle pedals to the ground so she didn't fall over. Both her feet were planted in the swirling dust, her hands tight on her bike's handlebars.  
Honey stood for a moment, looking around for the source of the noise. She didn't have to look very hard.  
Smoke and dirt billowed up from a few yards into the scrub plants off the highway. Heat shimmered in the air. Light spilled out underneath the smoke like a floodlight pointing to the sky, a sharp slant. Whateverthefuck the boom had been, it was there.

 

She ditched her bike on the shoulder of the road and crept down the bank into the underbrush, dropping to the ground as some of the air started to clear. Whatever the fuck was there was throwing shadows from feet away. With a light source like that she'd be seen in a second, higher ground or not.  
Piles of radiated-sterile garbage and clumped dirt dotted this part of her crew's territory like gross monuments, leftovers from people a long-ass while ago who hadn't had time to burn their waste. One such pile stood slumped a couple feet away, higher up the bank than the slowly settling earth and the light. Honey crawled to the garbage arm over arm.  
She pushed herself up onto her knees, leaning most of her weight on something that once upon a time had been an idiot box. Ozone stuck to the inside of her nose. A faint hum vibrated through the air, nowhere and all over at once.  
She shuffled to the side-edge of the garbage pile and leaned her head around it, squinting into the light.  
  
A thin vessel stood diagonally in the sand like a dropped knife, burning so hot-white she couldn't look right at it for long. What looked like a skinny door, or huge crack, was open in the side of it facing near her. Oil seeped from it in a dark circular smear. The vessel itself looked about as big as the Trans Am from end to end. It was the shape of the fighter planes in the Helium War comics that Doctor Death had given her forever ago now as an answer to her newbie questions, except without the wings, and the part of it that must have hit the dirt first was flared out thin and wide like a record instead of rounded like a nose. Underneath that, the ground was blown out in a smooth-sided crater a few feet deep.  
Grenades made craters like that, she knew. The boom must have been an impact sound. It could be a new BLI bomb, or some kind of broken probe.

  
Honey stood up into a half-crouch, still behind the garbage. She was ready to run back to her bike and grab the two-way that Ghoul had welded onto it to tell the others what the fuck, but then her eyes dropped to the ground in front of the glowing thing.  
Her first thought was of coming over a hill and seeing burning eyes and a curved horn, because just like that time, what she saw wasn't making any sense. The oil that'd been spreading over the ground from the thing had started to _move._ Not seep, but bubble and pull itself up off from the dirt in shivery globs, heaving until it stood in a kind of jelly column, rounded and tall. Up in the sunlight she could see through it like you could see through a shadow. All the colours she knew how to name swirled under its surface. It waved back and forth like grass in the wind, except the air was dead still that day. Its edges kept changing, bulging or curving in places before smoothing out. As she watched it grew intenna near the top of itself-- she couldn't say it had a _head--_ and glopped them into radar dishes, which it kept for a minute or so and then let drop away like rain dropped into a pothole puddle.   
  
  
Honey's mind flicked from the ship to the strangeness in front of her to the crater. A different set of comics flashed into her memory: old ones made from gloss-paper that Poison had showed her like they were holy. Those ones had ships, and weird tall things that changed shape, and a name for them in huge squiggly lettering. **Aliens! Beings From Another World!**  
She realized suddenly that she was breathing slow and even, the way Kobra had taught her too in case she felt like she was going to do flips off handles like he did sometimes. Doctor D had told her something to help with those times too, when he'd let her greasemonkey around the shop and sort music. He'd talked about listening to yourself.   
She closed her eyes and concentrated on her own feelings, her hands in the dirt, her lungs. In and out. In and out.  
_I'm not afraid,_ she thinks. Not dreaming either. Too much sand grated at her skin down her shirt for this to be a dream. Probably that was a strange way to react to shit like this, but Honey had been getting used to strange things. She opened her eyes, but kept breathing matter-of-factly as she could. _Alright. Shiny. Alright._  
She wasn't afraid but she could still go back, if she wanted. The thing didn't know she was here yet. She could bolt, call the others, tramp back over with back up and let them talk her through everything about whateverthefuck this was she'd found.   
_To hell with it._

  
She stood up and stepped out from behind the garbage pile, facing the whatever it was from the top of the crater. Habit kept most of her weight on her heels in case she needed to spin around. “Hi!” She called out experimentally.  
  
If the shadow alien thing turned towards her she couldn't tell, but it did stop shifting shapes so much. It burbled like soda and shook all over. Like a cat shaking itself out after a nap.  
Cats didn't usually do that if they were angry. Still, the distance between her and her bike felt like a yawning drop. She couldn't fucking back down now though. She cleared her throat and raised her voice over the weird hum in the air: “I'm Honey Grenade. Who're you?”  
The alien paused, only wobbling at the edges. It curving in on itself a little as its shadows and colours swirled. Then, all of a sudden, a goddamned transmission was playing out on the middle of it like a holoscreen. The video was a crackly, static-ridden mess; what could be made out through it was a oval-faced White sunshine with eyes like sun lizard's. He was on his side in some dark room, propping up his head with his hands. Wavery white words written wide flicked across his torso: _“--you're a traveller?”_  
Honey flinched backwards in surprise.  
The transmission warped even more and then cut out, replaced by the mixing colours and weird see-through of the creature's normal skin. It started shrinking, squishing itself down from its huge height. Once it was apparently finished it wobbled back and forth several times, making a weird kittenish sound from nowhere she could see. The alien was still big enough to swallow her whole, if 'swallowing' was a thing that it could do. It was also, crystally, calling her over.  
She hesitated, feeling for Quick and Fire's balancing weights on opposite sides of her belt. Quick, as always, was in easy reach of her better hand. She steadied herself with her blasters for a second more before stepping forward. _To hell with it._  
  
  
Dust billowed up around her boots as she slid down into the crater. She took a second shaking it off to gather her courage, then stood up properly.  
Closer up the alien looked less like greasy shadow-oil and more like glass. Moving, squishy glass. It had shrunk itself until it was about as tall as her; she wondered if that was what it meant to do. It seemed like it'd be soft to touch, but she sure was not going to put her hand out to it to check. Looks didn't mean shit, after all.  
Instead she fished around in her pocket, keeping both her eyes at the part of the alien that would've had eyes like her if it had face things at all. Her hand found her switchblade. She pulled it out of her jeans, flicked it open against her belt and then held it out, handle-first.  For a minute, nothing happened. Honey felt some new sweat trickle down her shoulders but didn't want to move her arm in case it thought that was a threat. She gestured a little with the knife. “It's for you,” she said.  
Finally, a wavering glob of alien stretched out like a limb from the central mass. It took the knife delicately, without touching her hands, then was quickly re-absorbed. The traveler hunched in on itself again.  
Honey wondered if it did that the same way Ghoul bent his head working out an engine problem. She twigged, more worriedly, that the blade didn't seem to even bother it; if it made any kind of mark on the squishy alien skin then it healed over so fast Honey couldn't even see it break. Honey shifted on her feet and purposefully tamped down the part of her instinctively shit-scared of something that wasn't bothered by knives. Slow, even breaths.  
After a couple seconds of savouring or note-taking or maybe just trying to break it down, whatever it was doing, the knife floated to the front of the traveler again and a limb-glob stretched out, holding the knife the same way that Honey had.  
She nodded, hoping that'd be taken as gratitude for having her weapon back. She was grateful for her road gloves as she put her hand out, but it turned out she didn't have to touch it; it dropped the knife back to her and then receded again. She stuck the switchblade in the large inside pocket of her open vest. “Okay,” she mumbled to herself without blinking. _Alright._ So: soft, not damaged by blades, and copy-catting. What would Kobra or Doctor D do now?  
She knew what. Wait for the other party to make a move.

   
There was a beat of silence, and then another outstretch glob took shape. It stretched towards her face, this time, and Honey found herself rooted to the spot. The colours under the alien's see-throughness were swirling slower, more... well, relaxing.  
Hypnotizing. She knew from hypnotizing, living under BLI's face all her desert life, and this wasn't exactly a memory-erasing ray but it sure made it easier to not freak out at the alien arm going near her _face_. She didn't know what to think about that, and it was too late, anyway, because within seconds the alien had gently cradled her cheek.   
The not-arm felt surprisingly cold. Nice, against the heat of the air. It was textureless as wind without sand blowing in it, or water. It cushioned the side of her face from her temple to her chin, just sort of testing the contours of her bones, or maybe her head's weight.  
Honey waited for a sharp twist and hearing her verterbrae column break. Or something. Nothing happened. The pressure was solid but not danger alarm-ringing.  
Nothing kept happening for a long moment, and then Honey felt something nudge inside her brain.  
She tensed, then realized what was going on when a flush of yellow-sunlit-warm-calm went through to her. Literally went through, she could see the yellow in the, the alien's skin, going through the arm-through and up to her head. The traveller's thoughts-- that's what they were, _thoughts_ \-- mostly seemed to happen in colour.  
It was trying to read her mind.  And still, she wasn't afraid.  
This was probably exactly what it wanted her to think, like actually-truly _exactly_ what it wanted her to think, but it wasn't like the traveller had been violent towards her. She wasn't sure that it _couldn't,_ but so far at least, it seemed mostly harmless.  
And, hell, she'd gotten herself into this mess. Honey closed her eyes and nodded as much as she could without jostling the limb.  _Alright._  
  
More warm sunlight-feeling. Then she felt it.. spreading out, inside her head, looking for something. Her memories shift around under its search. She could feel it the way you could feel a dream sometimes. Like a dream, she could see it too, on the back of her eyelids, hear it. Everything.  
Her mom and dad and her home, all the school lessons, and then school over and her dad dead and her home poisoned and cut off from Honey like a tumour, and the hum in her teeth that warned cars on the road and Draculoids in cars, and her mom _dead;_ and then Show Pony and the others, and then the junk punks with their loudness and brightness, then the fairs, Hope laughing, all the songs, then headlights coming over the hill in front of the school in the dark, the thunderstorm, the feel of the wind on her hand out of the window as the punks whooped and the feel of the wind on her bike bracing on all sides, wide like the sky was-- love and grief and fear and loss, different love, hope, paranoia, rain, _freedom freedom freedom._  
Her heart started up a drumline, living through the adrenaline and breaks all over again. Honey was dizzy with it, unthinking, floating in space.

  
Then the slideshow was suddenly gone, and her face hot again. The alien had let her go.    
As soon as her heart had started it's kickdrum rhythm it slowed down. She stepped back instinctively, dizzy and a little lost down the memory road. The desert seemed overbright, like it was when you just step out into it. It was too wavery.  
Honey took a minute to catch her breath where it'd flown out of her, and wipe her eyes.

  
When she looked up with her head on in the right place, the alien was in the middle of shifting again. It seemed more purposeful this time, settling on quickly on a general outline of a body (taller than her, wider to fit) before working on the details from the outside edges in, colours swirling and brightening and settling patch by patch.  
Honey watched as the changes slowed, solidified. Her eyes got wider and wider.  
In less time than a song took, the traveller stood in front her on actual legs, just about human-looking. It seemed almost shy.  
Its shape was mainly Poison's, now. (Mostly. It didn't have the scar on his chin, or the desperation that clung to him and his sharp bones even when all the crew had enough to eat.) It'd chosen the bright burn of his hair and the deep blue of his jacket, extending the blue down to cover not only its arms and chest but also its pants and thin-soled shoes. The jacket and the pants and the tie at its neck fit it like they did for television bodies back in the City--Fact News anchors, folding their hands and telling you what to think that day. The colours were way too bright to be anything City-approved, though; the tie the same colour as its hair. (Which was _shiny._ )  
Its face was Poison's, except way too pale and with a darkness around its eyes like the horrible staring BLI smile had. There was something of her mother in the way that it steadied its hips with its hands and then looked a couple inches down at her without making her feel like she was looking up at it. Hope, little Hope, shone through in its smile.   
  
“Hi,” it said after a while, and its voice was mostly Poison's too.  
“Hi,” she answered reflexively.  
They stood there, almost facing off, copying each other's stances. Honey kept her palm on Quick's handle. The traveler didn't _look_ like a threat; it was made up of too many people she loved to look like a threat. But again, looks didn't mean shit. No killjoy got dusted because she was too careful.

  
Movement flickered behind the alien, by the spaceship that was still glowing. Honey glanced over at it, then stared.  
A small figure with a pink body and white face had stepped out of the ship. After walking a few steps, gingerly, the figure suddenly tripled in size, stopping at about the same height as an adult human. The pinkness looked fuzzy instead of metal or skin-y, even from where Honey stood. The furry figure turned on the spot several times until seeming to catch sight of the alien and her. It hurried over.  
Honey expected Pink Fur to stop beside with the other alien, but no. Pink Fur barreled right past the traveler, stopping bare inches in front of Honey.  
She leaned back on her heels, alarmed, her hand tightening on Quick again.   
Pink Fur didn't seem to register the threat at all. They waved at her, pointed, then reached up to their pink fuzzy ears that were on top of their head like a cats'; they petted their ears a couple times, then pointed at her again. (They had white hands. Like, person-hand-shaped, cloud-white fingers and thin palms.) The thin lines of Pink Fur's mouth never moved, but Honey could still feel breath on her face; it smelled faintly sweet. A little like flatbreads that'd been left in the sun.   
Pink Fur was bouncing on their--paws? feet?  They were squeaking in patterns that probably meant something.   
Honey had absolutely no idea. "I-- what?"  
Behind Pink Fur, the alien laughed. “This is Lola,” it said, its voice rounding out the “o” and the “a” like there should be more sounds there. “They likes your hair.”  
Lola nodded enthusiastically, folding their pale hands in front of their heart. (Or where a heart would be, in a human.)

  
_Oh._ Honey put her hand up to her head, still a tick surprised feel how just little curls she had left. A couple weeks back she'd gotten tired of always cleaning clumps of dust out of it and, with Show Pony's help, had chopped it off except for a couple inches' halo. Pony had convinced her to dye the leftovers pink too, though they'd conceded to her having it one side pink and one side fire-orange. A longer strand right near the front of her head was wrapped up in two glass bad luck beads that Marilyn had gifted her.  
Pony had cooed at that, because the ladyboy couldn't stay out of anything that wasn't their own business for longer than a minute. It was kind of their job, but _still._ Honey had resolved not to tell them anything else, ever.   
Honey touched the beads lightly, now, feeling how the glass warmed up from the sun. She decided to nod back at Lola. “I like my hair too.”   
  
Lola pet their ears again, keeping one hand on their heart. Then they turned to the alien and tilted their head.  
“Do you like mine?” The alien asked, putting its hand up to the shiny red on top of its head. It didn't really look like _hair,_ exactly, despite the placement. The texture was wrong. It was moving languidly in the still air, the same way the entire shadow had been at first. It looked darker than it had a couple heartbeats ago.  
Honey didn't need to think about her answer though. “It looks milkshake,” she replied honestly.  
The traveler smiled, tiny human teeth poking over the corner of its lips.

  
That one detail, for whatever reason, was what made Honey decide on what she'd been thinking since she'd stepped down over the edge of the crater. She dropped her hand from her hair and held it out toward the traveler, palm-up.   
It looked surprised as it took her hand. Its grip was chilly and non-textured the same way its shadowy-colourful skin had been. It held on slightly too tightly, like greenies in the Zones did sometimes 'cause they weren't used to casual skin-kinship with people.  
Weirdly, that only made Honey want to smile at it more. Maybe that was part of the side-effects of having someone make themselves up from stuff inside your own head. She made to tug on its hand then paused. “You can leave that, right? You don't need staying close so you don't melt all into the sand or anything?” She gestured at the ship behind them.  
The traveler looked back and forth several times before it seemed to understand what she'd said. “Oh. Yeah. It's just, hold on.” It carefully let go without actually dropping Honey's hand, then walked over to the still-glowing ship. With a couple quick, calculated moves of its hand the ship suddenly crunched out of the ground and hung there in the air for a moment, sleek and shining, before folding up smoothly and evenly like a City youngling's toy.  
_Ghoul would love that,_ Honey thought. Picturing the look on Ghoul's face if she could see her right now-- if he could see the ship, at all--- made a laugh bubble up behind her teeth. She managed to press it down, though, only smiling a little more. She was-- she was _making first contact_ with a whole new life-shape. She couldn't break down into giggle-bubbles. She bit her lip, then shot a glance at Lola, who'd sidled on over to Honey's side and was covering their mouth with a pale hand, fuzzy shoulders shaking. “You're not helping much,” she told them.   
  
Meanwhile the alien had worked the ship into about the size of a blaster in its hand. It made one more efficient palm-sweep around the diameter of the now-tiny and no longer glowing vessel, and then tucked the disc into the inside of its slim-sleeved jacket.    
“You're taking me to see your crewmates?” The alien said as it walked back over. It sounded kind of excited-- and nervous, which Poison's voice didn't get often.  
Honey paused. She hadn't told it that was her idea. But then, _no shit,_ it'd looked into her memories; of course it knew who the others were and that she'd want for them to see something like this. “Pository,” she said. “You, and Lola too.” Then she checked herself: “If they-- and you-- want to meet them, I mean.” She swallowed back a cough and tugged on her hair beads instead again, trying to look the calm and totally chill that Jet had when he was talking to somebody into something.  
In response Lola clapped once, pressing their hands over their heart again excitedly and even hopping up and down on their not-quite-paws.  
The alien nodded at Lola, smiling, and then reached over and hugged them one-handed, like Poison would to Jet or Ghoul or Honey sometimes. “My good friend,” it said to them warmly. “And right, very right." It looked at Honey. "We'd love to go."  
Honey relaxed, let herself smile again. “'m glad. They're gonna love you,” she said. Because her crewmates would, and because she'd have sweep-found bragging rights for _all time._

 

\--///---

 

**Author's Note:**

> For the record: yes, Ghoul would and will totally flip his shit over the alien's spacerocket. I'm not sure the rest of Marilyn's name or who exactly Marilyn is other than the another teenager who's the subject of Honey's as-yet-unsaid affections.  
> The smell on Lola's breath is pancake batter, because it's a easily storable energy-dense food solution and also because I've lost control of my life.  
> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> \--//---


End file.
